Home>News Center>Life
         
 

Like mother, like daughter
(China Daily)
Updated: 2005-09-15 06:24

Great pressure

In today's modern society where women work equally alongside men, undertake similar responsibilities and pursue similar career paths, studies have shown that women still have undue pressure to bear, such as performing the bulk of "unpaid jobs," including housework and caring for family and relatives as well as volunteer work.

A survey by the Women's Commission showed that, in some cases, women still spend three times as much time as men doing housework, while around one-third of married men still did no housework at all.

"Women can hire a domestic helper to help them with their daily chores or child-rearing but some women do not feel comfortable hiring an outsider to do such work," Chu says. "So they turn to their relatives, particularly their mother or their sister, to help them."

This support network also strengthens the mother-daughter bond, Chu says.

At the same time, the mothers of these women grew up in the 1960s and 1970s when more women began to break free of their traditional roles, getting an education and entering the workforce.

"They did not want to follow in their parents' footsteps and be housebound," Chu says. "And they strived for independence from their own mothers who had come to Hong Kong, having been brought up in stricter times and who wanted their daughters to follow the older ways."

Chu adds that this generation of women was exposed more to Western culture and the value of independence so they developed more progressive thinking than their own mothers.

It was interesting to hear of an undergraduate student who had learnt how to apply makeup from her mother, Chu says, rather than from her friends. The girl's mother had even gone as far as buying fashionable clothes for her.

"It is good to see mothers making more of an effort to find out what their daughters are interested in," she says. "It builds closer ties between them."

Soo Ki and Lam, Helen and Po Yee, would no doubt agree.

(China Daily 09/15/2005 page13)


Page: 123



Paris Hilton hacker gets 11 months in jail
Sophie Marceau to meet Chinese fans
Stars make up for "Zing by Zing" album
  Today's Top News     Top Life News
 

Hu: China to provide US$10b for poor countries

 

   
 

US President Bush to visit China in November

 

   
 

PFP head James Soong in Shanghai for forum

 

   
 

China oil firm buys EnCana assets in Ecuador

 

   
 

At least 160 die in Iraq al-Qaida bombings

 

   
 

China's first astronaut to appear in movie

 

   
  Like mother, like daughter
   
  China's first astronaut to appear in movie
   
  Britney Spears: Mother
   
  Gov't buys 305m condoms for AIDS prevention
   
  Patriots delay marriage vows
   
  Beijing students barred from discrimination against non-locals
   
 
  Go to Another Section  
 
 
  Story Tools  
   
  Feature  
  Wild orgies leave the Great Wall in mess, and tears  
Advertisement